Does Less Inequality Lead To A Better Society?

I have just acquired a copy of a book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett called "The Spirit Level", which I haven't yet read but which argues that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor. The authors contend that almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours and big prison populations is more likely to occur in a less equal society.

There is a very interesting article, in 'The Times' newspaper on 28 April by David Aaronovitch which draws on some of the material in this book to discuss the new Equalities Bill announced by Harriet Harman on 27 April. Aaronovitch says the following in his article -

"If the problem is income disparity, then the answer must be income redistribution. Logically benefits and tax relief for the low paid would go up, as would taxes for the well-off (and not just the rich). The newly un-neglected would then measure their heightened esteem in the dwindling gap between themselves and the better-off, and over time begin to see the value of education, to start reading to their children and stop smoking. Well, it's an ill wind and news of the falling number of British billionaires and Wayne Rooney's half-million tax increase, could (for all I know) be working its magic already.

We can imagine the objections to this. It would, without a culture shift, constitute a reward for idleness, a disincentive to work and require hard-working middle earners to subsidise the workshy. Until such a time, that is, that they learnt not to be workshy".

I need to read the book before jumping to any conclusions but this for me is one of the main problems with the argument that correlates equality with fewer social problems. If the correlation were that simple then giving poor people more money and thus reducing the gap between them and richer people would result in slimmer, more mentally well and less incarcerated people.

I probably parody the book's argument when I say that but it can't really be that simple can it?

Lincolnshire - Home of the New Berlin Wall

I have just watched an excellent programme on BBC4 called Timeshift: The North-South Divide which sought to examine if a north-south divide still existed in England. One contributor argued that it did but that the line of the divide had shifted over the last 20 years or so with Grantham and most of Lincolnshire now in the South with the divide starting at the Severn Estuary and ending just south of Grimsby. The programme said that England is more regionally unequal than any other country in Europe and you have to go back to Germany before the Berlin Wall came down to find anything equivalent.

There appears to be no conception of 'being a southerner' amongst people from the South that is close to being comparable to the sense of 'being a northerner' amongst people from the North. This may not be surprising because that sort of sense of identitiy is often a defensive mechanism stemming from being the underdog - for example, there is also more of a Scottish identity than an English one.

The programme reminded me of the controversial report published by the think tank Policy Exchange in the summer of 2008 which argued that a decade of regeneration policies has failed to stop the inequality of opportunity between towns and cities in the North and those in the South East from increasing. The report recommended a series of radical proposals that would reverse the trend and inject a new momentum into regeneration policy. The key recommendations from the report were to increase the size of London by allowing landowners the right to convert industrial land into residential land in areas of above average employment; expand Oxford and Cambridge dramatically, just as Liverpool and Manchester expanded in the 19th century and for the Government to roll up current regeneration funding streams and allocate the money direct to local authorities - controversial stuff and not everyone agreed!

If you get a chance to watch the programme, I recommend it!

Divided, Separate And Unequal?

I write this sitting on a train travelling from London Kings Cross to Leeds (courtesy of the free Wifi service provided by National Express East Coast). I know a bit about Leeds because I lived 60 miles away in Beverley between 2001 and 2004 whilst working for East Riding of Yorkshire Council and visited the city on many occasions during this time. Leeds is often cited as a good example of a regenerated and booming city and in many ways that is precisely what it is. However, my own experience of the city tells me that you don't have to scratch the surface very hard before you realise that in many ways, it is a polarised city with a significant gap between those who have benefited from the newly acquired affluence and those left behind. I started thinking about this because in today's Guardian newspaper (in the Weekend magazine), there is a very interesting piece by David Simon in which he says that there are "two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed". It's interesting stuff and well worth a read - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/06/wire

Does Ignorance Contribute To Anti-Americanism?

A friend of mine (thanks Jose), has just pointed me in the direction of a survey which would suggest that large numbers of Britons think America is a land where polygamy is legal, where you don't get emergency medical care if you are poor and where there is more racism than in Europe. Britons also apparently think that America provided Saddam Hussein with a large share of his weapons when, in reality, Russia, China and France were responsible for most of the arms exports to his Iraq. On all of these questions Britons are wrong. There may be many genuine reasons for anti-Americanism in Britain and around the world but a leading cause would appear to be ignorance. Have a look at the survey results here:
http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/home/files/TrueOrFalseStatements.pdf